1. Ask to promote their services, no strings attached- Let your referrals sources know that you have a blog or newsletter reaching thousands of families in the local area and that you’d love to tell your clients more about them. Offer to post a guest blog on their behalf or feature their upcoming events in your email newsletter. Besides creating good will with your referral partners, they’ll be more receptive to promote your events and services when approached in the future.
2. Make Promoting YOU Beneficial For THEM- One strategy we use for our private clients is to craft a beautiful letter and custom certificates that the referral source can send to THEIR clients saying “…because you are so important to us, I wanted to personally send you a valuable gift to say thank you for your business.” The gift, of course, is a free session with the attorney, which we note has a value of $500. The referral partner’s clients feel great about receiving such a valuable gift (increasing business for THEM), while you benefit from all the new appointments!
3. Share Without Selling- Don’t overlook the importance of sending along helpful articles or resources to your referral partners from time to time. It’s a great way to keep the relationship going without a huge time investment. We always like to include a note along the lines of, “Hey–I thought this information would be helpful to you and wanted to pass it along…hope you are doing well” at the top of the email for that extra personal touch. It’s almost always appreciated and keeps you at the top of your referral partner’s mind.

What are you favorite strategies for nurturing relationships with referral sources? We’d love to hear what gets you consistent results! Leave a comment below and let us know!

If you’re also concerned about this, or you just want to make sure your email marketing is bringing in maximum results, take a few minutes and read the 5 strategies I’ve outlined for you below.

As a quick freebie -try sending your newsletter on Monday morning, Thursday morning or the weekend instead.  Studies show those are the days that get the most eyeballs!

Just pay close attention to your stats and don’t be afraid to try new things.  Email newsletters are powerful business tools…when you use them right!

Enjoy and have a great week!

Laura Lee

5 Ways To Spark More Engagement With Your Email Newsletter

If you’re sending an email newsletter but feel like it’s not getting much attention….or perhaps not even getting read at all, it may be time to change your approach.

The purpose of email marketing is to build relationships, not just occupy inbox space.  It’s one of those low-cost “touches” that help people get to know, like and trust you, so that they feel comfortable doing business with you down the road.

But if you’re not being heard, or worse, your email is not being delivered–all of your efforts will be in vein.

Before we get into the 5 steps you can take to get more mileage out of your ezine , an important first step would be figuring out your current email marketing “stats” as they stand.  This will help you to track your results as you implement some of the suggested strategies below.

Specifically, pay attention to your current open rate and deliverability stats if you have them.  Then try some of these small, but powerful changes to increase your engagement and help ensure your hard work doesn’t end up in the virtual “trash”:

1. Spark curiosity with your subject lines- If your email open rates are low, start using creative subject lines that make opening your email irresistible. Pull something from the ezine that leaves them hanging so they feel the need to click and learn more.  Here’s a few examples of highly clicked titles we recently used for our clients: “My Valentine,” “I stole the chairs,” and “I never saw this coming…”.

2. Open with a personal note- People want to do business with people–not law firms.  Don’t be afraid to add a few personal tidbits before your article each week to help people relate and connect with you on a personal level.  Talk about your family, vacations, weekend activities…and even include some pictures, too!

3.  Avoid too many “promotional” or “spam” words- One reason your emails may not be getting opened is that you are using too many words that cause your email to be filtered into spam.  Free is a big one, and so are other promotional phrases like “50 % off!”  and “call now !”.  In some cases, email providers won’t even deliver these messages to their users at all…filtering them instead into the black hole of the internet.

4.  Make your email newsletter interactive.  Ask your readers questions and seek out their opinions.  You can even go outside the box and ask questions that have nothing to do with the law.  One of our clients recently moved into a new office, so we asked readers to share their favorite places to find inexpensive artwork and décor.  Responses came pouring in from people she hadn’t heard from in years.  It’s great to know that people are listening, asking questions helps to build relationships without sacrificing too much of your time.

5.  Tell people what you want them to do- If people aren’t taking action after reading your newsletter, it might be that you aren’t telling them clearly enough what to do. Don’t be afraid to include clear calls to action asking readers to sign up for an event, take advantage of a discount, follow you on social media or forward your email to a friend.  As long as you are providing quality content and are not being overly promotional, people will appreciate you helping them take the next step.

Try implementing these changes and pay close attention to your results.  If more people are interacting with you and open rates improve, you’re on the right track!

Have any other tips to increase engagement with your email newsletter? Please come share them on our facebook page.

Many times this happens when our efforts are not consistent.  If you’ve never heard of the “Rule of 7″ or thought the pleas for consistent marketing were just slick ways marketers or ad reps could get more business from you, please check out the feature article below.   I know you’ll pick up some very cost-effective and savvy ways to maximize your marketing results.

If you’re an estate planning attorney, don’t forget that the opportunity to save $200 per month on our Done-For-You monthly marketing package expires on March 5th.  You can go here now to check your area’s availability.

Have a great week!

Laura Lee

P.S.  We are putting the finishing touches on March’s campaign materials and they are out of this world.  The focus is National Health Care Decision day and we are giving you a vast assortment of marketing collateral to allow you to shine in your community.  Be sure to check out our portfolio on facebook for an example of some of our materials. Then check to see if your area is available.

If you’re not consistent, you’re non-existent

If the marketing for your law firm is not producing the ROI or results you want, you may have a problem with being consistent.

Consistent marketing isn’t just slick sales lingo from a marketer or advertising rep. trying to get more business from you.  In order for people to know, like and trust you, they have to hear from you regularly.

If you’ve never heard of the “Rule of 7″, it’s an old marketing adage that says a prospect needs to see or hear your marketing at least 7 times before they’ll take action and buy something.

If you think about this in light of your own buying habits, you’ll probably find it to be true.  How often do pick up the phone and call a high-end service provider based on a one-off advertisement coming from someone you don’t know?

But when you start to hear from someone regularly…and then maybe a friend or a independent 3rd party (like the local news media) drops this service provider’s name too, your relationship with the company can quickly move from ice-cold to warm and receptive.

Now consistent marketing doesn’t mean you have to buy expensive ads in local magazines or the yellow pages every single month, either.  That may work for your particular business, but here’s a few other places where you can increase your marketing results by committing to consistency:

•    Email newsletter- Pick a frequency that you are confortable with and start sending your email newsletter regularly.  If you decide to send it bi-weekly on a Friday, make sure it goes out bi-weekly on a Friday!  Be a consistent presence in your prospect’s inbox.

•    Social Media- Building a presence on social media requires consistency! With so much happening on sites like Twitter and Facebook, you can’t expect to post an update once a month and get noticed!  At the very least, commit to posting and interacting on your channels at least once or twice a day.

•    Blogging- Great SEO results depends on posting regular content.  You don’t have to post daily–but shoot post on your blog at least once or twice a week.

•    Follow-up- There MUST be consistency in your follow-up!  Every client and every prospect needs to be hearing from you the exact same way, every single time.  If you’re not sure how to put a consistent follow-up strategy in place, or you’d like do train your staff how to  follow-up more effectively with the prospective clients of your firm, grab our free audio training on follow-up in the law firm here.

These are just a handful of places where implementing consistent marketing can maximize your efforts. Take the next 60 days, try our advice and track your results. We guarantee you’ll see a much greater return for your marketing dollars!

…then take a peek at the special we have right now on our Done-For-You monthly marketing packages for estate planning attorneys.

We know that you are so busy taking care of your business, servicing your clients and building referral relationships that your marketing sometimes takes a backseat to everything else going on.  That is why we created this program specifically for you.

These are high-quality, professionally done marketing materials with a proven track record of helping estate planning attorneys gain more clients, more page 1 search rankings, better conversions, newspaper and TV coverage, increased referrals, new speaking opportunities and more!

Each month, our DFY program includes:
•    A direct-response marketing campaign and step-by-step instructions on how to implement it (i.e. free reports, landing pages, postcards, brochures, follow-up scripts);
•    A press release and media pitch letter for maximum local publicity and SEO;
•   A weekly blog post professionally written and optimized to dominate the search engines (…for many DFY clients, our blog posts show up on page one in Google before any other page of their website!),
•    A done-for-you print newsletter to stay in-touch with clients by mail;
•    4 video scripts for video marketing; and
•    Area exclusivity!  We will not work with your competition.

It’s all of your marketing, professionally done for you each and every month, without the aggravation or expense of hiring in-house staff.  All of the materials are delivered to you in editable format so that you can customize and edit as you see fit.

To head off March, we’re offering these marketing materials at just $797 per month–a $200 monthly savings off the regular price of $997.   There’s no time commitment either; try it out at the discounted price and cancel if it’s not for you. No worries, no hassles.

This is like hiring a part time legal marketing professional for your firm for only about $12 per hour, that is a huge savings while still giving you expert results.

This offer is only good until March 5th, so to learn more about the program and request exclusivity in your area, visit http://www.legalmarketingmaven.com/dfy

Of course if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to just post a comment below or shoot an email to help at legalmarketingmaven dot com, we are happy to help.

To your success,

Laura Lee

P.S.-  Please feel free to browse through our Portfolio photo gallery on Facebook to see real results that our clients are getting and samples of materials that you will receive in the program.

I don’t know one attorney who does not feel this way—and, quite frankly, it’s a legitimate concern.

You’re spending a bunch of money and time to put on a speaking engagement or workshop and it’s only natural to expect some ROI for your efforts.

So to increase the chances that you get the outcome YOU want, try these 4 FREE strategies to get more publicity and registrations for your next speaking engagement:

1.   Send an email to your database:  Let your clients, prospects and referral sources know about your upcoming events and encourage them to forward the information any friends or family members that may also need help.

2.   Canvas your town with a great flyer:  Make a great flyer with a strong call to action and have someone on your staff put it on bulletin boards or drop it off at all the places where your target market hangs out around town.

3.   Submit the event to online event calendars:  Many newspapers and TV stations have online calendars dedicated to promoting local events.   For the most part, these submissions are free and give you a great opportunity get in front of new people with your events and workshops.

4.   Write a press release and pitch local journalists-  If you know of a journalist who covers the topic you will be speaking on (i.e. senior issues, parenting issues, tax issues), write a press release  and ask him or her to cover the event.  You can also pitch your release to hyperlocal sites (i.e, patch.com) that like to publish events and any information beneficial to local citizens.

So there you have it—4 FREE ways to increase registrations to your next live speaking event or workshop.  Give them a try and be sure to come back and leave a comment about the results you get from these easy strategies!

Here is tip that will increase your Google relevance and will cost you absolutely nothing.  It starts with these 3 steps:

• Tweet
• Like (Facebook)
• Comment

To begin, you’ll develop a network of colleagues, peers, and friends who all agree to promote each other by Tweeting, Liking and Commenting on each other’s blogs and videos.  When you are planning to post a blog or video, let your group know to be expecting it so they can read and respond.

Let’s say your financial advisor Mary has 200 followers; John, one of your best clients has 4,000; CPA Sam has 500 and insurance broker Sue has 6,000 followers.  If each of them Tweets, Likes and Comments on your post; you have just been placed in front of almost 11,000 people with no extra work and for free!

As Google’s algorithms do their complicated and scientific thing, key factors in ranking include key words and reviews.  Those Tweets, Likes and Comments help you increase your relevancy and rankings and cost you absolutely nothing!

To recap, develop a network of people who will Tweet, Like and Comment on your blog content (and you will do the same for them) in order to increase rankings in Google searches.  Doing those small things will translate into higher rankings, more visibility and more business.
 
 
 
 

Free, Low-Cost and NEW Marketing Strategies to Increase Leads, Referrals and Publicity for Your Law Firm

I’ll say right off the bat that our team invests a TON of money each year staying on top of data and learning the most effective ways to market your firm online–and off.

There have been a number of BIG changes this year that can really impact the amount, and quality of traffic, coming to your law firm site.  These methods are simple, CHEAP (…and in some cases FREE), and right now are barely being used by your competition.

I invite you to join me on September 22nd and come hear what they are.   Here’s a quick sneak peak of some things I’ll cover:

•    Cheap and low cost marketing campaigns that are working NOW and how you can implement them in your firm.
•    The 3 R’s of relationship-based marketing and how doing these things on a regular, consistent basis will increase your leads, referrals and live speaking opportunities by up to 90%!
•    The new “online marketing secret weapon” that grabs immediate attention and converts like CRAZY, which hardly anyone (including your competition!) knows about.
•    Insider PR secrets to getting free publicity and regular news coverage for your law firm–without spending 6 (or even 5!) figures on a PR agency.
•    How to streamline and simplify your marketing efforts so you are “putting butts in seats” without having to take your focus away from legal work or the things that make you the most money.
•    Why it’s so important to be posting regular, optimized content on your website–and short-cuts to help you do this if you’re pressed for time.
•     ….and more!

I guarantee you will find this webinar to be content rich, educational and that you will pick up a handful of strategies that you can implement immediately in your firm– no matter what practice area you are in.

At the very end of the call, you will also have the opportunity to learn about Legal Marketing Maven’s Done-For-You monthly marketing package for estate and elder law attorneys.  This is a comprehensive solution for busy small and solo attorneys who want RESULTS without a huge time or financial investment. At the request of many, we will also SHOW you some of the past materials we have created.

There is no obligation to purchase this package and it’s not for everyone either–so please feel free to join us for the fr’ee training and stay on to hear more about the program if you’re interested.

If you’re not, simply hang up after the lesson.  No pressure, no hassles,
no never-ending sales pitches. That’s our promise to you.

So are you ready to join us?

Just go to this page and enter your name and email.  This will allow us
to send the private call-in number and webinar link directly to your inbox
upon successful registration.

See you then!

Laura Lee

Perhaps your phone isn’t currently ringing with invites and the thought of cold-calling organizations gives you the creeps.  Instead of letting it deter you from speaking all together, think of it as a chance to give our favorite LM2 multi-step technique a try:

1.    Target ONE specific group or organization- It could be non-profit organizations, moms clubs, nursing homes, companies that host regular “lunch and learns,” etc.

2.    Gather all necessary contact information- You can manually compile the contact information of local groups you want to target or work with someone to compile the full contact information of every group or organization within a 25 mile radius.

3.    Warm them up with a mailing- This can be an email or a physical mailing explaining who you are, what you’d like to present, and most importantly, how inviting you to speak will benefit their particular group or organization (never forget to address the issue of “what’s in it for me!”).  Adding a lead generation piece or free guide to this mailing will supercharge your efforts.

4.     Follow up with a phone call- Now instead of “cold” calling, you are simply following up to make sure someone received your letter or marketing materials.  From there you can gauge whether there is interest in having you speak or work with their organization in some capacity in the future.

It’s a great technique that works in just about every practice area.  Just be sure not to neglect that follow up phone call (even if you have to ask your secretary do it for you!) as it often makes the difference between having your materials collect dust on someone’s desk to getting your speaking opportunity booked and confirmed.

As I’m sure you have heard this week, the south was hit hard with horrible tornadoes. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the South after the horrible storms that moved through leaving devastation in their path. I know from experiencing tragic losses during Hurricane Andrew how devastating Mother Nature’s fury can be.  I hope you and your loved ones were spared and my company will be donating 10% of our revenues next month to the relief efforts.

It makes me think about emergency plans, and my post that I did a while back on that subject, if you missed it you can read it here.  If you do not have an emergency plan in place for your business, I encourage you to do it, you never know when an emergency could strike, and as scary as it is we are seeing natural disasters becoming more and more frequent. ??Please feel free to leave a comment on that post or shoot me an email with any tips or resources you have for emergency plans, I’d be happy to compile them and share them with the readers.  I’m sure by putting all of our heads together we could come up with a plan that fills in most gaps!  Again this is all about creating a system that you would follow should the unthinkable occur .

Last week, I also interviewed Nate Hagerty and we discussed the importance of Social Media marketing and how to convert the time spent on those platforms into clients in the door.  If you missed the call, we have set up a replay page at http://www.lawyersocialmedia.com.  Nate gave his formula for successful implementation of social media marketing (it has proven results for his CPA firms) so be sure to go listen to the call if you have not already done so. I think you’ll also be very surprised by what Nate shared is the most important component of social media marketing – and I’m sure it isn’t what you think!

We also discussed what I feel is one of THE most important pieces of your marketing plan, and that is consistency!  Simply put, having a system in place so that you know it is getting done.

Nate and I did a little digging into some of the sites of the lawyers that registered for our call, both by signing up for their newsletters (for those that had them) and also by checking out their social media profiles (again for those that had them or we could find).

The results were that for most, when we signed up for a newsletter, we received a simple thank you note – sometimes – and that was it.  There were some social media profiles that were really doing a good job, but others that hadn’t been updated in a very long time, almost looking abandoned.

Is that what happens with your marketing?  You get gun-ho coming up with campaigns, putting yourself out there on social media, doing speaking engagements, etc…and then business picks up and you get busy doing the client work.  Leaving no time for the marketing, I call this the marketing merry-go-round.  I see it quite a bit, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

In order for your marketing to be effective it must be consistent.  You must be in front of your prospects all of the time, because you never know when they are going to decide that now is the time that they need your service.  And when they need that service you want them to call YOU not the new lawyer down the road that has suddenly gotten on their radar.  ??It’s all about relationships, and relationships have to have consistency.

They want to know, like and trust you and the like and trust factors sometimes can take a while to build.

Here are my suggestions (bare minimum) for keeping a consistent marketing plan going:

• Weekly Email to your list
• Daily Post on Social Media (not always about you but to drive conversation)
• Monthly Print Newsletter (you need to be getting in the MAILBOX of your prospects)
• Regular Videos – Multi-media marketing is important as it allows your prospects to “see” you and it is great for SEO
• Monthly press releases – you probably won’t get picked up every month but keeping in regular contact with your local media with timely advice and articles establishes yourself as the expert, and when you are picked up and your prospects see you in the news it is certainly a credibility boost that money can not buy.
• Blogging regularly – you must be updating a blog regularly if YOU want google to take notice of you, and let’s face it people are going to Google to find professionals to work with.

This can all be systemized so that it is happening on a regular basis without much effort from you at all.  I know this hard for a lot of lawyers to believe, but you have got to let go of the concept that YOU must do everything. Delegate these items to key team members.  If they need training we are happy to help or you can contact us to learn more about how we help law firms implement consistent, educational-based marketing into their firms.

If you are an Estate Planning or Elder Law attorney you may want to check out our DFY package that will give you all of the content you need on a monthly basis to begin getting a marketing system in place in your firm right away.

If this is an area you are struggling with and you would like to schedule a no-obligation 20 minute strategy call with me to brainstorm some next steps, please reply to this email and we’ll set something up.  There is nothing I enjoy more than helping lawyers get their ideas out of their head and into concrete action steps!

And yes, social media CAN be just that.  However, it is also much more importantly the new media way of marketing.  People are no longer turning
to the yellow pages or ads run in newspapers and magazines when they
are looking for a service provider.  Instead they are going to their network,
their “social network”.  And YOU need to be there!

The question then becomes about how you show up once you are there.

I see a lot of lawyers making what I consider to be three huge mistakes.

• Setting up an RSS feed ONLY and just feeding the content from their blog onto their social media profile.  While this can be good for SEO, it is not doing much to build you a following of local prospects and leads.  Nor does it usually generate any interaction.
• Building relationships with other lawyers but neglecting looking for prospects and potential referral sources in their own back yards to build relationships with that will turn into real ROI for the time they are investing in “new media” marketing.
• Not realizing that social media contacts (fans, followers, connections) are worth FAR less than email and direct mail contacts. And failing to set up systems by which they *leverage* social media to build these much more valuable lists.

Next week I am hosting a teleconference and will be interviewing Nate Hagerty, who is helping CPA’s do just that, systematically use social media to get local clients from social media into the doors of their practices.

If you want to learn more about how you can use this “new media” for marketing your business and not have it suck up tons of your precious time without any ROI.  Join us!

It’s a free call, and we will send a replay but only to those that register
http://www.lawyersocialmedia.com

To your success & productivity!

Laura Lee