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Growing a law practice requires nurturing viable legal leads and converting them into new clients. Firm leadership knows its target audience, and they employ various methods to find and cultivate those who fit the profile of their ideal client.
Whether your practice is large or small, here are steps you can take to nurture law firm leads and convert prospects into signed cases.
Respond Promptly to Inquiries
Why is lead nurturing necessary to acquire legal leads? Because clients rarely show up at your door or call without any prompting.
According to Cleo, a law firm case management software provider, an average of 35% of prospect calls are not answered. Talk about a wasted opportunity!
When a prospect does phone your firm, make sure someone answers. And if you don’t have an intake process, or even a receptionist, hire a service to take calls for you. Don’t let legal leads move on to the next firm.
Once you have the legal lead, act swiftly. There are over 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S., and they’re all looking for their next big case. Get back to the person ideally within 15 minutes of their inquiry. It’s the first opportunity you have to show you’re responsive to their needs.
Provide Helpful Information
Perhaps nothing is more irritating to a prospect considering a product or service than when a marketer or sales representative immediately tries to close a deal. Law firm lead nurturing is about providing value to prospects as they weigh their options and they navigate the research stage of the buyer’s journey.
Offer your prospects items of value that can help them with their decision-making. Put downloadable information on your website about your firm’s practice areas, or offer a webinar on a current legal topic of interest. Consider sending out a monthly newsletter to legal leads with updates about cases you’re working on, and testimonials from current satisfied clients.
Keep in mind for newsletters that it’s a best practice to give recipients a choice to opt-in to electronic communications. Automatically signing them up for an email and forcing a prospect to opt-out if they don’t want to get it, is a guaranteed way to annoy or even anger them.
Find a way to balance maintaining a connection with law firm leads by providing something useful, with no strings attached. By making yourself relevant to them, they’ll choose you when they’re ready to sign with a law firm.
Keep Engaging Stubborn Leads
Finally, don’t give up if a prospect doesn’t bite. Some people take longer than others to buy, and hiring an attorney is, for many, a big commitment. It’s best to segment legal leads by where they are in the decision-making process, so you send the right communications to them at the right time, advises Good2BSocial, a digital marketing agency for the legal industry.
Don’t send every marketing email to all your leads – customize your message to where the prospect is in their journey. Be sure to track what you are sending to whom and what they’re consuming.
Again, follow-up is critical here. Martindale-Avvo polled over 1,500 customers to find out how many leads it takes to land a single client. The average was 13.2 leads – and the conversion time was 28 days. Nearly 40% of attorneys followed up on their leads within 15 minutes of receiving them.
Only 2% of attorneys would contact a prospect seven times or more. But it can sometimes take that long to make the connection that leads to signing the prospect as a client, Martindale-Avvo stresses. Keep up with prospects, or your firm will miss out on valuable revenue.
LeadingResponse Knows Legal Lead Generation
Our law firm marketing team works with over 500 practices across the country. We can help you with lead generation and nurturing legal leads. If your law firm leads aren’t where you want them to be, get in touch and let’s talk!
