Tips Guides Resources

As an Estate Planning attorney, you are doomed to fail if you compete on price. Instead of trying to position yourself as the most affordable option, you need to focus your law firm marketing efforts on establishing credibility and building a professional reputation.

Fighting with your competitors for the lowest price is like tossing a bunch of pit bulls in a cage and throwing in a single steak. Not only will most of the dogs miss out on the prize altogether, but even the one that wins will come out hurt!

Competing on price not only cheapens your services, but it also cuts into your profit margins; leaving you with a poor value offering and an empty bank account.

However, successful injury attorneys understand there is another option! Instead of setting your rates low, you need to put a high value on your knowledge, ability and time while convincing your prospects that you are worth the money.

The more valuable your services are perceived to be, the more money you can charge! Plus you’ll avoid the feelings of regret every time you accept a fee less than what you believe you are worth.

Here are three keys to focus on when you are explaining your value proposition to potential clients. By touching on each one of these subjects you will enable yourself to raise your rates and make more money than other estate planning attorneys:

1. Qualifications: If you have a lot of experience as an estate planning attorney, you can surely use this as a selling feature. If you have a special area of expertise, this will improve your client’s chance of winning their case. For example, perhaps you focus on physicians or small family business owners. Almost any experience that goes beyond the regular call of duty for lawyers can be used to enhance your image.

2. Solutions: An inexpensive lawyer cannot afford to spend the same amount of time on each client as one who charges more money. By going into detail about the unique solutions you offer that other lawyers don’t, you will quickly separate yourself from the pack.

3. Results: At the end of the day, the most important thing to your client is whether or not you are able to get the job done. By having a long list of successful results, client testimonials and letters of recommendation, you will raise your level of prestige and prove to others that you are worth every penny you charge…and more!

The amazing thing about charging a high fee is that it is actually easier to explain than a low one! Instead of having to discuss why your prices are so cheap, which usually portrays a lack of confidence or expertise, you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself by showing your prospects why your services are so valuable. Law firm marketing is about differentiating yourself from other competitors.

In the end, you must demonstrate that value is more important than price. Any client would prefer to pay a high fee to a qualified estate planning lawyer to protect their assets and preserve their wealth than to pay a small fee for results that are less comforting.

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.

As a personal injury attorney, marketing your law firm’s website is the most important part of your online business. Not only is it meant to provide prospects with information about you and your services, but it is also intended to turn them into clients.

If your website is failing to consistently convert prospects to customers, then it is time to find out what is wrong.

There are a number of things a personal injury attorney’s website needs in order to be successful. Here are the top six ways to improve it so you can maximize its performance and boost your law firm’s internet marketing efforts:

1. Understand the Problem: Before you consider putting anything on your website, you first need to find out what your prospects are looking for. If you don’t understand their issues then you won’t be able to provide a solution. And even if you do understand their issues but don’t respond to them on your homepage, you risk losing visitors because they weren’t able to find what they were looking for. Give visitors a clear indication of how you can help them.

2. Provide the Solution: After addressing your prospect’s concerns, it is time for you to offer a solution. Your front page should discuss easy-to-understand benefits that are both tangible and believable. Do not focus on your services; focus on the benefits, value and results you can achieve for your clients.

3. Establish Trust: Beyond addressing the problems your clients have and offering the solutions they need, you must prove yourself to be trustworthy before they’ll ever consider contacting you. There are a number of ways you can do this: include testimonials or impressive statistics on the front page, a section that discusses your awards and results, an about us page that is easy to navigate to and from, and a number of resources (such as white papers or blog articles) they can research so they can discover what makes you such a great personal injury lawyer.

Also, don’t forget to include links on the bottom of your site to a privacy policy and a terms and conditions page. While people hardly ever read these pages, they play a significant role in establishing credibility.

4. Make it Easy to Navigate: Don’t try to be fancy, you need to make your website as easy to navigate as possible. This means you should have a navigation menu either on the top of your page beneath the banner or on the left hand side. Besides that, your pages should load quickly; even with a slow internet connection. The easier your site is to read, the more likely your prospects will stick around and explore.

5. Use a Professional Designer: While some personal injury lawyers don’t believe it’s necessary to spend money on professional web design, they don’t realize what they’re missing out on.

In real life, when you meet somebody in person for the first time they judge you based on your appearance. If you show up in ripped blue jeans and a tank top, you won’t get the same response as you would have if you were wearing a suit and tie. It’s the same with your website.

When people visit your homepage they quickly judge your services based on your presentation. If your site looks like it was developed by a high-schooler in 1995, your prospect will quickly leave without ever finding out that you’re the best personal injury attorney in town. However, if you site looks professional and pleasing to the eye, you will instantly improve your image.

6. Test Rigorously: There are so many things you can test on your website, so it might seem like an overwhelming process, but it’s not. With free tools such as Google Analytics you can find everything you need to know about your website and visitors. You can find out how people went to your homepage, what city they live in, how long they stayed on each page, what links they clicked and more. When you find a page that isn’t performing well, you can make the necessary changes and see your statistics improve.

By understanding what your prospects are looking for and presenting yourself as a personal injury lawyer they can trust, you’ll greatly increase your chance of earning new business through your website.

Much like creating a brick and mortar business, establishing an effective online presence takes time. However, if you’re willing to put in the effort to consistently improve your reputation and presentation then you will have no problem emerging from the pack of personal injury attorneys and marketing your law firm on the internet.

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.

Before you can effectively employ the strategies of law firm marketing, you will need to clearly understand precisely what “legal marketing” is. Many attorneys confuse “marketing” with “advertising”; in fact, the two terms are often used interchangeably. That is a mistake because they don’t mean the same thing, not at all.

When in doubt, go to the source for an explanation. Following is how Merriam-Webster defines marketing: To expose for sale in a market or to sell; to deal in a market.

No wonder so many attorneys are confused about “legal marketing”, even the quintessential word gurus are not clear on the meaning. Marketing for lawyers is like any other form of marketing and simply consists of building relationships with people and sharing with them how you can help them.

You need to be able to present clear, compelling reasons why your clients need you and your firm. That will take a little bit of homework on your part. Know exactly how the client will best benefit from your services and tell them about it. Tell them about it over and over and over again.

The failure to find and retain more clients is fundamentally a marketing failure; it truly is that simple. Here are four keys that will help you make marketing your law firm easier.

To be an effective form of legal marketing, the message and image you present must meet the following four criteria:

1. Consistency is the key to success: Once identified, continue to reinforce the same reasons why your clients need you. If you do not stay on point, you run the risk of confusing them. Repetition of your core message is essential to successful marketing for lawyers.

2. Keep it short - Keep your message short and to the point. Choose your words carefully when engaged in legal marketing; people do not have the time or interest in reading dense paragraphs. Keep it clear of legal terms and focus on presenting solutions, not a litany of your legal services.

3. Share your enthusiasm - Your belief in your law firm marketing is contagious; share the wealth! Without implementing this key component, you run the risk of getting lost in the crowd. Once lost in a crowd, it is very difficult to re-establish why you are better than the rest. Too many attorneys make the mistake of trying to appear so professional that they end up being boring. This is the most deadly marketing mistake a attorney can make.

4. Communicate at their point of need - If you are not telling them exactly what it is they need from you (what they absolutely must have that only you can provide), you will be wasting your time and energy. Marketing your law firm is different than marketing other kinds of professional services, but to build a bridge to your prospective client, you must come down out of your “ivory tower” and meet them at their point of need. Strive to connect with them emotionally as well as cognitively.

Frequently, the best answer is the simplest and it is right under our noses. Your law firm marketing strategies must be consistent, concise, compelling, and contagious. Follow this notion and you’ll see results immediately!

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.

As a lawyer in small or solo law practice, you face many marketing challenges, no doubt. Over and over again, small firms say their biggest obstacle is finding their real target audience. By setting goals and following a few guidelines you will be able to overcome that obstacle and begin to see immediate results; increasing the quality and quantity of clients and building a continual revenue stream.

Get Smart is not only the name of a popular TV show and motion picture; it is also very good legal marketing advice. What do we mean by getting smart? Get busy and start to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. S.M.A.R.T goals are those which are:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timed

There is no more important goal on which you can focus your legal marketing energy than in identifying your ideal target market (ITM). How do you know who to target? The following is a list of proven action steps to help you begin targeting your ideal client.

1. Interview current and former clients. Whenever possible, ask them probing questions such as: Why did they hire you instead of your competitors? If applicable, ask why they continue to work with your firm. Find out which of your services have been most helpful and how they helped. Ask what they like most about working with you. An important law firm marketing strategy you don’t want to skip: Ask how you can improve your services and implement worthwhile suggestions.

2. Cast a wide net; don’t underestimate just how many people you have access to. Make a list of friends, family members, relatives, colleagues and business associates. Then, ask what kind of people or companies they have access to and which they would refer you to. Many legal professionals forget to canvass the people they know and, consequently, miss out on business because they did not practice this important rule of law firm marketing.

3. You don’t have to spend a lot of time or money when you conduct a basic market search. Start by simply asking prospective clients if there is a need and how they are currently meeting that need.

4. Marketing for lawyers can be as simple as using your local resources. For example, contact your local bar association; get the names and geographical locations of all attorneys and their areas of practice. Send out a letter of introduction and invite them to lunch.

5. Locate your base of operations in a geographical area that matches your likely prospects; tastes and requirements. For example, if you want to practice business law, choose an office in a busy office district. If you are targeting blue-collar workers, set up shop in an industrial area.

6. Cut down the amount of time you spend on the road. If you will be spending a good deal of time at the courthouse, rent office space no more than a 30-minute drive during rush hour. The less time, money and energy you put into commuting, the more you can focus on legal marketing techniques.

7. Speak to a cross-section of lawyers and ask them what types of practice areas are over and under represented.

8. Take a close look at your successful competitors. What markets have they been targeting? Determine, as best you can, how successful they have been using their current law firm marketing techniques.

Set aside a little time each day to focus on one or more of the above items. Marketing your law firm takes time. Using these strategies will be time well-spent; that’s a guarantee!

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.

Despite your very best legal marketing efforts, your firm may fail to reach its potential if you forget one important principle: POSITIONING (Communicating Your Benefits). This principle deserves a prominent place in any law firm marketing plan.

We are all familiar with the saying, “The lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”. It would be equally foolish, in law firm marketing, to not learn about and understand your competition. How can you possibly use legal marketing to your best advantage if you don’t know what (and whom) you are up against? The importance of understanding your competition can not be overemphasized. Do the work now to learn about them or run the risk of underestimating them and learning via losing a big prospect later.

A crucial component of marketing for attorneys is to understand positioning. The first step to achieving positioning requires knowing and understanding your competition; specifically:

Names of law firms

Names of their partners

Which services they do and do not provide

How much they charge (per hour, any retainer size)

Who they target with their legal marketing efforts

Approximate annual revenues

Which law firm marketing techniques they use to find clients

Growth strategies

If this seems like a great deal of work, remember how absolutely imperative having this information is to your law firm’s marketing success.

Other things you will need to know:

How they position themselves in the marketplace (elite, cheapest, biggest, highly-specialized, bi-lingual)

Their relative strengths and weaknesses

Do they have a reputation for settling out of court or litigate everything

Their win-loss record (if applicable)

Legal marketing does consist of a number of components; this is one that definitely deserves your time and attention. By studying and learning from your top competitors (especially the successful ones) you will reap many benefits. For instance, your research may reveal untapped areas in the current market or discovering benefits they don’t (or can’t) provide which your firm can. By studying others’ law firm marketing techniques, you may find ways that you can better market your own firm; including ways to creatively package your services.

You will want to fully assess and understand their strengths and weaknesses. Remember, every company and every person has them; even you. It is just as important to know your own strengths and weaknesses as it is your competitors. The goal is to build your business around your natural strengths, while developing, delegating or outsourcing areas that are weak.

An important rule of legal marketing to keep in mind: Do not be intimidated by your competitors’ strengths; you can always find ways to use their strengths against them. For example:

If they’re bigger, you are smaller and specialized.

If they offer numerous services, you specialize in two areas and focus capturing a larger market share in those areas.

If they have beautiful, expensive offices, you charge less due to lower overhead.

If they have several associates, your client’s receive the expertise of working directly with a partner without being double billed.

Your law firm’s marketing efforts will be amply rewarded when you find creative ways to use your competitor’s strengths against them.

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.

If your law firm is not growing (or worse yet, shrinking) and your revenue stream is down to a trickle, it’s high time to start being proactive with your marketing. One of the most important aspects of successful law firm marketing is the ability to clearly define and demonstrate the services which you offer. Put yourself in the shoes of your client for a moment. If you are not employing proven legal marketing techniques to tell them what you have to offer, why should they buy from you? If you don’t tell prospects how you are different from your competitors they will assume you are basically the same and start shopping you on price.

After many years of studying effective law firm marketing strategies, I have seen a common problem. Many attorneys communicate with prospective clients in a way clients do not understand. One of the biggest mistakes a lawyer can make is to use “legal jargon” when speaking with prospects. No one wants to feel stupid and would rather save face than risk embarrassment by asking you to define what you believe is a “common legal term”. Effective marketing for attorneys relies on your ability to be understood; without a clear understanding of what you can do for them, most clients will head for the nearest exit.

As a lawyer, you must uncover the words and phrases your clients use to describe their goals, challenges and problems. You must cross their “language barrier” before you can begin to entice them to learn more about how you can help them. For example, unless they have experienced it most people don’t know the difference between Chapter 7, 11, and 13 bankruptcy. Nor do they know the difference between a will, living trust, and an estate plan.

Here is a simple exercise which will help you accurately demonstrate your product and services:

1. Write down the terms and language you use to describe what you do to another professional in your field.

2. Now, write down the key words and phrases your clients use to describe your services to you. (If you can’t complete this step, start asking your clients and listen to them as they describe their problems.) Your ability to succeed in law firm marketing will rely, in part, on your willingness to write down the key words and phrases your clients are using and committing them to memory.

These two lists should be very different. If they overlap by 50% or more, you are probably not listening closely enough to prospects and clients. It is recommended that you go back to square one and ask more questions, listening more intently, if you expect your legal marketing efforts to be effective.

Review your current marketing materials closely.

Are they filled with terms from your list or your client’s list?

Which list of words predominate your legal marketing material, like your website and brochure?

Do your materials read like you are primarily addressing other attorneys or your prospects?

Is your marketing material filled with legal jargon and in-depth technical descriptions of your services? If so, remove them.

Could the “average man/woman” on the street pick up this material and know exactly who your ideal client is and how you can help them in thirty seconds or less?

Failing to cross your prospect’s language barrier is a common mistake seen in all forms of legal marketing. By spending the necessary time to analyze and update brochures, marketing materials and ads you will greatly improve your ability to connect with prospects and convince them to hire you.

Stephen Fairley is CEO of LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com and The Rainmaker Institute, the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms. Attorneys visit http://www.LawFirmMarketingStrategies.com to claim your FREE marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’.