Three Little Changes That Can Help Law Firms Increase Conversions

Lawyers spend significant money trying to bring in new clientele. Losing a single opportunity to bring your firm more clients can be frustrating. But bringing in the best legal leads is challenging, particularly for small and mid-sized law firms. Many lawyers pour more money into their ad spend, hoping that increased volume will produce a few signed retainers. But the truth is, you can find sneaky ways to increase conversions and attorney lead generation for your firm.

Three Important Factors to Get the Best Legal Leads

To increase conversions and get more legal leads, your firm should look at three specific factors:

• Improving overall lead quality
• Increasing contact rates
• Reducing acquisition costs

To help increase conversions for your law firm, we’ll share three ideas we successfully implemented for our clients below.

Tip #1: Use Qualifying Criteria To Screen Leads

Most people make contact forms as minimal as possible to encourage more leads to fill them out and hit “submit.” But that also means the people most eager to hire you can get lost in the high signal-to-noise ratio.

Convention wisdom says most people won’t fill out online forms that ask too many questions, especially on mobile devices. However, asking more from people genuinely interested in your services can increase conversions. Simply put, a shorter form can provide more quantity because less friction is involved. But generating the quality legal leads is the best way to increase conversions and acquire more clients for your law firm. In most cases, reducing form fields produces lower-quality leads. Instead, focus on adding 1-2 questions to screen out unqualified leads, like:

• Do you already have a lawyer helping with your case?
• When did your injury occur? (to screen for statute of limitations)

If screening for quality is not an issue, then focus on simplifying your contact forms and making them more visible. Ensure your firm’s website is search engine optimized and hosts a visible contact form directly on the home page. Here are some other ways to encourage quality leads to complete your website’s contact form:

• Switch to pre-populated radio buttons, if applicable
• Put required fields above optional ones (like a phone number or email address)
• Reduce or eliminate blank fields that ask users to type in their answers or comments

The more personal questions you ask, the less likely people are to complete the form. And make sure your site’s thank-you messaging sets the right expectations after a lead submits that contact form.

Tip #2: Implement a Phone Validation API

For example, a service such as Numverify can prevent competitors or spammers from entering fake phone numbers on your forms. Even better, this service will validate up to 100 phone numbers monthly for free! There are similar services for validating email addresses, too. If inquiries for your firm’s services stay pretty low-volume every month, this idea may not get much traction. But if your lead intake staff mostly makes outbound calls, validating each lead’s phone number can dramatically increase contact rates.

A phone validation API makes perfect sense if you’re a law firm specializing in mass tort cases. Try running two different TV commercials if you can. On the first one, list your firm’s phone number as the primary contact method for leads. Then, run a second edit that encourages leads to fill out the contact form on your firm’s website. You’ll likely see more people calling than using the contact form, but to increase conversions, screening leads for quality matters. When you implement phone and email API services, you’ll capture verified contact information, which can help increase conversions.

Tip #3: Create a Lead Nurturing Funnel

We’ve all seen engaging email campaigns or websites offering free white papers to download after you submit your contact information. These two “lead nurturing” tools help push qualified prospects further down the sales funnel. Lead nurturing provides relevant information for your defined target group at each step along the buyer’s journey. And lead nurturing is the best way to acquire 50% more leads at a 33% lower cost. Furthermore, nurtured leads have a 23% shorter sales cycle than non-nurtured leads.

Not sure where to start in creating a nurturing funnel for your law firm? First, consider what you can offer potential clients in your geographic area. What expertise or insights do you have that you can break into bite-sized quotes or infographics for your website? When designing your lead nurturing funnel, consider your typical retainers and what makes your firm stand out.

Focus on information that’s most relevant to current clients, and tease that value to new prospects. Is it your win rate or access to local experts willing to testify on a client’s behalf? Host a donation drive or register volunteers through your firm’s website if you’re known for giving back to the community. Are you the go-to lawyer for disabled veterans? Video testimonies from military service members you’ve helped can encourage others to hire you.

Lastly, always follow up promptly — leads may require up to 10 “touches” before they convert into clients.

Bonus Tip: Outsource Your Customer Acquisition Needs to Increase Legal Leads

Need a faster way to increase attorney lead generation right now? Let LeadingResponse handle your firm’s customer acquisition needs. We deliver over one million qualified legal leads annually to more than 500 law firms nationwide. Our data-driven digital marketing campaigns generate leads in-house, and we provide real-time delivery.

And with Hub, our client portal, you can track legal lead quality more efficiently. It’s the ideal platform for you to plan and monitor campaigns, plus you can dig deep into performance analysis – all available, right at your fingertips. Plus, Hub integrates with your existing CRM system.

Ready to see what LeadingResponse can do to help your firm increase attorney lead generation? Get in touch with us today, and our expert team will help guide you to the right solutions for your firm.