I recently received a telephone call from a company, they will remain nameless, who informed me of the new public access law and how people can now approach barristers directly without going through a lawyer or solicitor.
They further went on to explain that they could sell me a database of over 8,000 decision makers within the UK legal industry. Names, email addresses and telephone numbers etc.
This list was being made available to marketing agencies because they believed more than ever solicitors and lawyers will need our help to reach the top of Google.
For a second or two I was tempted because we work with a lot of lawyers and solicitors here at Stargazer so we have experience in this field and how great would it be to be able to contact these people directly.I hope you find these legal marketing tips helpful.
Create marketing people love
However this goes against everything we believe, we believe in creating marketing people love. We only want to contact people when they have shown an interest in our products or services and not to blast out unsolicited emails.
We want to delight our prospects, not annoy them.
Can you image all the marketing firms who will be tempted by this fool’s gold and will use it to cold call and send spammy emails? We want the first impression people get from us to be a positive one.
I have targeted legal firms and solicitors when writing this post but I want you to discover it naturally and of your own accord. We don’t want our marketing message driven down your throat.
We want to help you make more informed decisions about your marketing and leave you to decide whether we may be a good fit for you.
According to Cooperate Executive Board 60% of prospects have already made the decision whether to use your firm before they even contact you and HubSpot say 78% of internet users conduct research online before making a buying decision.
How lawyers & solicitors can take advantage of public access
Let’s get to the reason you’re reading this post, how you can take advantage of this change in law? We say embrace it don’t fight it.
So if 60% of people have already made up their mind whether to use your company or not and 78% of them do their research online, how does your legal firm take advantage of this?
If your business website has just a few sales and services pages, then it is time for a change.
Answer problem based questions based on your services
If your prospects have already made the decision and are doing their research online, how do you influence their buying decision? Or a better question is how do you help them make their buying decision?
This is where inbound marketing comes in. By creating a business blog and creating content that answers your clients and prospects questions you will attract them to your website because you have the information they seek.
You need to be seen as the company that can help and by answering your customers questions and addressing their pain points you do a few things:
1) You help your prospects
2) You show your prospects that you are an authority on this subject
3) You show search engines that you have worthy content on the subject (which gives them a reason to rank you)
4) You start to build a relationship with your audience
Wait there’s more
Just because you now have your target market visiting your website more often and are finding the answers to the questions, you still don’t know who these people are. It is estimated that 94% of your website visitors are leaving without doing anything, so how do you get to know who these people are and in turn nurture them into clients?
If you take a look at the bottom of this blog post you will see what we call a ‘call-to-action’. This entices you in (the anonymous reader…hi!) to download content that is relevant to what you are currently reading. In this case how inbound marketing can help your legal firm.
When you click this call-to action it will then take you to what is called a landing page. Take a look at a real life example of a legal firm taking advantage of a landing page.
Once they reach a landing page they will enter their details to receive your great content. These people are now identified to you and you can start to nurture (I said nurture, not spam) these prospects into paying customers.
Think of the time saved
By implementing marketing software like HubSpot you can automatically nurture these prospects. You can also lead score them, which means the leads that are sales qualified can be passed to your sales team when they have identified an interest. Imagine the time your firm will save!
Please note we do not want to automate everything, on the contrary, we want to make the relationship you have with your website visitors more personal, not less.
You still need to interact with them either face-to-face or on the telephone. This is an important point to remember.
Not automation, but personalisation.
Conclusion
Public access may seem like it has made it more competitive when actually this is the perfect time for you to embrace inbound marketing and turn more of your leads into sales.
Do not get left behind. At the moment most of your competitors are not doing this but the ones that are, well, they’re getting a leading edge over everyone else.
Not convinced? Then check out these fantastic case studies. Why not also read our more in-depth post on inbound marketing for lawyers.
Now it’s your turn
What challenges has public access brought to your law firm? Let us know in the comments below.