As you market your law practice, both online and off-line, you will generate an ever-growing list a potential leads. Most of these leads will not turn into clients right away, so you you will need to nurture them along until they are ready to hire you. In the meantime, you need to retain their interest in you until they are ready to hire a lawyer.

An important part of any nurturing campaign is the segmentation of your list, so your message to them can be targeted specifically to their needs. For example, if someone reached out to you about bankruptcy, you don’t want to send them content about estate planning.

It’s About More Than List Segmentation

But in addition to segmentation by services, you also need to look at your leads as belonging to one of these four groups:

1. 1. New Leads (those just coming on to your list)
   2. The Unmotivated (low-engagement leads not ready to hire you yet)
   3. Sleepers (past clients or leads who haven’t engaged in a long time)
   4. Heroes/VIPs (repeat clients or highly engaged leads who are or could be referral sources)

Each of these segments has a different relationship with you and as such, has to be treated differently. For that reason, I will discuss each of them below with some ideas on how to market them.

1. New Leads

Your new leads are excited and interested in you because they are reaching out for a solution to an immediate problem and looking to you to provide one. They’ve made the first step and they want to know if you can help them.

That welcome content should be immediate, reinforce why they made an excellent decision in contacting you, and clearly provide them with assurances that you can provide a solution to their legal problem.

But don’t stop there. The initial response will probably not be enough. Research has shown that leads need to be “touched” as many as 8 times before they respond. I have had leads on my list for weeks or months before they call me for a consultation.

In sum, when speaking to new leads:

• • Educate them on your services
  • Offer them help for getting what they need from you
  • Establish your authority as the right lawyer to provide that solution
  • Target them with unique information that’s relevant to them

2. Motivate the Unmotivated

Next are the leads that receive your initial responses, but despite the “8 touches” are not motivated to take action towards the next step – retaining you. Maybe they’re procrastinating or trying to ignore their legal problem. Maybe they think your solution is unaffordable. Or maybe they’re just shopping around.

Who knows? You should. Make some effort to find out. Start analyzing the information you have about them:

• • What was their experience with you? What problems did they have? How did they sound on the phone or in a consultation (assuming it got that far)? Did they seem engaged with you – were you hitting it off – or were they a bit detached? Did they seem a bit price sensitive? How can you address that?
  • What does the follow-up look like? Look at the post-contact campaign (e-mail or otherwise) to see if it is engaging enough. Is it targeted enough? Are the subject lines compelling? Do they effectively address any objections the lead may have to hiring you, including not seeing the value proposition in your services (for the price sensitive)?
  • Engagement history. What content (in your e-mails or marketing copy) captured most of their interest? How can you target them with relevant information based on that?

You won’t be able to address each customer individually, but find the recurring themes and reasons that lead to unmotivated potential clients, and build campaigns around them. This exercise will also help you identify areas where you can improve existing campaigns (or improve the value proposition for your legal services).

Here are a couple things you can do.

Re-evaluate Your E-mail Campaigns. One indicator of an unmotivated potential client is low engagement on the emails you send. They never click through or take action; perhaps they aren’t even opening them. If the low engagement is widespread, it could be a sign you need to revise the campaign.

• • If open rates are low, test different subject lines.
  • If click-throughs are low, embed video content or make the language in the call to action more compelling.

Go Beyond E-Mail. Maybe your potential client is just swamped with e-mail and doesn’t want to be bothered. Mixed in with all the others in his or her inbox, they may just be deleting yours unread because they’re too busy.

Try snail mail contact instead. Send them something like a high gloss postcard. Some ideas for postcard content:

• • Quick tip or helpful information
  • Introduction of a new product or service
  • Deal or coupon
  • Thank-you card for their previous purchase 
  • Card for an occasion
  • “We miss you” card
  • Feedback request

Include a link or QR code on the postcard, so the switch to digital contact is easy. The same could be done with a letter with compelling language on the envelope to get them to open it.

3. Wake up your sleepers

Sleeper have been on your list for a while or have unsubscribed from receiving emails or texts, so reaching out to them is trickier. Take special care to make sure your marketing campaign to this group complies with any applicable consumer protection laws before sending anything.

To get started, figure out why they’re no longer customers. Hopefully you have a robust unsubscribe experience that gets you information on why they disconnected from you. If they left because of disappointed hopes about your solution or a sense of getting a false promise from you, send them content that details how they can access that value expected.

If you decide to market to them, share the content that targets their knowledge gap or disappointment. Where you can’t identify a specific (or likely) reason they’re sleeping, design a campaign that addresses the common reasons customers have left. Let them know what’s changed and what’s new.

4. Encourage Your Heroes/VIPs

At the same time, don’t overlook your happy customers! Be sure to identify the leads in your list that have high engagement as reflected by high open rates. Here, whatever you are doing is working so keep doing it. But you should also encourage them to be brand advocates and referral sources. Even if they don’t retain you, they may know others that would. Here are some ideas on what you can do:

• • Ask for reviews
  • Develop and promote a referral program
  • Show appreciation to long-time customers via exclusive offers
  • Engage with your supporters on social media

Content targeting your happy customers is key.

Make retention marketing a priority

Money spent targeting your list of current and prospective clients will almost always get you a higher ROI than money spent working to acquire new ones. You always need to do both, of course, but look at your budget, and assess whether you’re paying enough attention to your leads.

Retention marketing also keeps you engaged with them, which is important if you want them to stay engaged with you. You’ll continuously learn what they want now, what new legal issues they’re having, and what areas you can improve to keep their loyalty.

You will find this to be a winning strategy to get you through the lean times and help you take off during the prosperous times.

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